Friday, January 14, 2011

Better older/better younger

Last night I watched "Heathers" with The Wife because she'd never seen it (partly at least, I suppose, because she's 10 years younger than me) and you know what? It wasn't nearly as good as I remembered. I guess some movies are best watched stoned with 8 other people in a dorm room. A lot of what I took for edgy and alternative at the time now seems sadly dated and forced. She didn't like it much either. I guess "Heathers" doesn't stand up so well.

Anyway, that made me start thinking. What's better when you get older? What's worse?

Better when you get older

1. Food and wine (the things, not the magazine)

When you're really, really young, you think creamed celery is pretty much the bomb. Then you have an annoying I'll-only-eat-white-food phase. Then McDonald's seems like the Best Fucking Thing Ever. Then what, college cafeteria food? Bitch please. You have no idea how to eat until you build up a palate that comes from years of experimentation. (Some people longer than others, obvs.) Same thing with wine. You don't even like wine when you first start drinking. Then you think Turning Leaf is basically Stag's Leap on sale. It takes a long time to figure out what good is.

[DISCLAIMER: This doesn't apply if you're some Richie Rich who grew up in Atherton and went to the Dining Room at the Ritz-Carlton on Tuesday nights like it wasn't no thang. If so, I hate you/am jealous.]

2. Your parents

Those nagging sacks of flesh that use to exist solely to drive you batshit insane slowly morph into Intelligent Adults with Thoughts and Feelings. Sometimes they even say something rational or sensical. Not often, but once in a while.

3. Sex

Remember how hard it was to learn to drive a stick? And the first time you tried in the parking lot somewhere you kept stalling and stalling and you could never make the car go? And now you don't even think about it and you can flow through the gears like a professional driver without even thinking about it? And because you have the basics down so pat, you could basically do everything without thinking about it and be able to play with the radio or even fix your hair while you're driving.

Now, I wouldn't drive for 3 hours around town in a stick anymore, but that first hour is still fun.

4. New York City

You know what makes New York City fun? MONEY. You know what you don't have when you're young? MONEY.

[Again, if you're some trust fund kid who grew up on the Upper East Side or whatever, more power to you. I'm talking generally here.]

5. Baseball

There is something about the casual rhythm of baseball that appeals to me more the older I get. When you're young, your sugar-addled, gnat-like attention span gets frustrated if something doesn't happen every 3 seconds. Now that I'm a little older, I appreciate the break.

Better when you're younger

1. Drugs

Yayyyyyy! Let's stay up for 3 days! Stroking your hair and blissing out to Happy Mondays is SO MUCH FUN. Best of all, I can stay up until 3 am shrooming and then go to work the next day!

2. Law & Order

The repetition is somehow lulling and calming. It is a replacement for the gentle cycles of childhood. Instead of Nap Time, it's Misleading Suspect Time. Instead of Snack Time, it's Courtroom Scene Time. Only as you get older do you realize that watching a show in which every episode is essentially the same gets a little unsatisfying.

3. Picking up chicks

When you get a little older, you'll learn that it's not as much fun. Especially getting them to take the candy and get into the van. JOKING. JOKING.

4. House parties

Younger: OMG SO MUCH FUN 3 kegs drinking all night tons of people who's that who woke up in the bathtub LOL there's someone passed out on the kitchen floor

Older: Who are these people in my house? Is that guy opening my 1989 Pichon-Baron and pouring it into a plastic cup?

5. Football

Something about football doesn't appeal to me as much as when I was younger. I'm theorizing there's a thing where baseball gets better and football gets worse the older you get. I don't know why.

Excellent list. If you'd told me 15 years ago that sleep is the best thing ever, we would have had an argument. Now I'm pissed if I get under 8 hours. I hate when I find out my folks were right all along.

Queue is very popular slang in France for the male genitalia. Go Netflix.

It's true, Heathers is really dated. Christian's Slater's line about what he'd if the world was ending ('Climb into a rowboat, put on some Bach and play my sax' or something like that) encapsulates the entire late 80s in one cheesy line.

About Me

TK lives and works in San Francisco. He occasionally travels to places east of the Caldecott Tunnel, but not very often. His interests include bars, reality TV, and irony. Things seem to be going fine.